Church Growth?

A short post, open to your projections and comments. :-)

Once upon a time, the general culture was amenable to church-going for a lot of reasons that didn't have anything to do with God or to a commitment to being a disciple.

Now, the general culture is less amenable to church-going.

Instead of focusing on trying to get people into the door, churches should focus even more on faithful worship, faithful teaching and committed discipleship. If this results in declining church membership, so be it.

Whatever the format is of the above commitments, I don't care. I expect that different formats will appeal to different disciples and I think that's fine. Just let's stop trying to make ourselves attractive to people who are not primarily interested in worshiping or learning about God. All we're doing is watering down the Gospel.

Comments?

The Emperor has no clothes

Over on my friend David's blog, Big Circumstance, I managed to blurt out an idea that's been in my head for awhile but which never came out in quite the same way before.

The idea is this: lots of people who want to follow Jesus hate Sunday morning services. They find them energy-sapping and exhausting, like a terrible meeting at work that you really don't want to attend but have to. Only the thing about church is that you don't have to attend if you don't feel like it.

I think that this is actually the real challenge to the Church today and no amount of contemporary worship, no amount of praise songs and no amount of "modern worship" is going to "fix" the problem. Trying to make existing Sunday services attractive to people who would rather go to the dentist is just a no-win game and I think that's what we're trying to do. US congregations, not having yet declined in the way that the Church has done in the UK, seem even more stuck in the mode of thinking that if Sunday services just get more "modern" that more people will come.

Now, my only problem is that I don't really know what to "do" about this. I do think that small groups may be part of an "answer" and I suspect that this is part of where the Emerging Church movement is at. But I think that small groups are going to have to be places where individuals can share of themselves and be real and contribute to the growth of others in the group so that everyone can go out from the meeting into the world. They can't be just another meeting. And they can't be primarily led by one person week after week or they just turn into mini-Sunday services.

Any other thoughts?

Flash Mob Worship Liverpool

This is too cool. And, by the way, it's liturgy. More information at Guerrilla Worship

Is Liturgy Really a Bad Thing?

I found this post on Discovering and Escaping Liturgy interesting. Partly, I admit, because I have a love for (non-fussy) liturgical worship and I often feel that the British Methodist Church thinks that a minister or a congregant who likes liturgy does so simply because he or she doesn't want to let go of the past. In other words, that there isn't really any positive or compelling reason for the existence or use of liturgical worship beyond palliative spiritual care for the elderly.

Here's some interesting material from the post that rings true to me:

I spoke at a conference about our rediscovery of liturgy and tradition. The room was packed—by that time liturgy had become a very hot topic. During my presentation, a leader raised his hand and commented in a very disappointed tone.

"I don't understand," he said. "You're telling us that young adults are drawn to liturgy and ancient worship forms, but I serve at a liturgical church and our young people want to get away from liturgy and traditions. They think it's boring. I came to this conference to learn new ideas from contemporary churches. I want to move forward, not back."

The author concludes with a thought that seems fairly obvious to me:

We have found that the goal shouldn't be to maintain the past or to always be on the cutting edge. Our goal is to worship in a way that represents our community to God and God to our community. That means contextualizing worship for today, but not forgetting the family of God throughout history to which we belong.

I think that there is an element of 'different strokes for different folks' here and that these 'different strokes' may not necessarily be connected in every instance to one's age. I know that, in the church that I came from, the younger folk (school leavers) wanted the traditional services and the traditional hymns and it was us 'Baby Boomers' who were lobbying for The Latest From Spring Harvest. Or maybe I should have been born a generation earlier or a generation later?

If a congregation is truly worshiping God and truly has Christ at its centre, then I'm not sure that 'worship style' is the Big Deal we seem to make it out to be.

Now, having knowingly and publically uttered heresy, I put on my tin hat and wait for the flack!

Leading Worship

Stuart Blyte makes some good, sensible observations about leading worship on his thread 10 well in fact 5 Thesis on the Worship Leaders Door.

Common Worship 'Times and Seasons'

For those who have not seen it, there are free, downloadable files available giving texts from Common Worship Times and Seasons which I have found useful, even as a non-Anglican.

The website doesn't yet contain all the text of Times and Seasons but it seems to have more than the last time I looked and is now running through to Pentecost in the Church calendar.

The same URL also offers downloads from Common Worship itself (again, not absolutely everything), Common Worship Daily Prayer and New Patterns for Worship.

Reaching 20-somethings

Here is a post from a 'twenty-something ministering to twenty-somethings': Newsflash! The Key to the 20-Somethings is Not Musical Style.

Fellow Boomers, if you want pop music praise songs in church, great. But admit that it's for you and don't pretend that it's the only thing that will get your kids into church.

To me, the post presents the biggest problem of all for elderly congregations that want to attract younger people. People want to stick to their own age groups. It takes young people to attract young people. You need a core group of active 20-somethings to attract 20-somethings.

Methodists and Conversion

We've been having a fascinating conversation over on: What is a Methodist Evangelical?. Please feel free to continue there if you have any further thoughts!
I wanted to pick up on Peter Kirk's comment on 'conversionism'. Peter wrote:

To me, the central issue which distinguishes evangelicals from other Christians, at least in the Church of England, is conversionism, the belief that what the mass of people need is not moral exhortation or participation in worship but to be born again. How far are Methodist evangelicals, and Methodists as a whole, in agreement with this?

Perhaps those who have been Methodists longer than I have been can answer that question for 'Methodism in general'. I think it's right to say that 'conversion' is central to Methodist thinking: 'All need to be saved,' according to the 'Four Alls'.

I'd like to do some personal thinking around the idea that 'people do not need moral exhortation or participation in worship, but to be born again.'

My own sense is that we need all of these things and that conversion alone is not sufficient. I think I'd also add that we need prayer as well; this might come under the cover of worship, but I want to make clear that public worship on a Sunday probably isn't 'enough', at least not if we are ever going to need to call on our faith in times of crisis.

First of all, on 'conversion'. I think that we all need to be 'converted' because we all need to repent. As most Christians know, 'repent' means to turn around. We all have a tendency to want to go our own way apart from God, be it actively sinning or simply just ignoring God, so we all need to 'turn around'. But this 'turning around' isn't just a one-time thing.

If 'conversionism' is a one-time big event, then I don't think it's sufficient. Necessary, but not sufficient. I worry if people think that all they have to be able to do is to name the time and the date of their conversion and then, as far as God is concerned, they are set up for heaven. I also would not want to exclude people who have managed to turn around, repent and convert without ever being able to name the time and the date. I do think that this can happen for people who have been brought up in a Christian family or another Christian environment.

I believe - and I think that this is very Methodist - that 'conversion' is an on-going thing. As someone said to me recently, it's not that we have been saved, it is that we are being saved. This 'on-going salvation' is, I think, another way of expressing the Methodist idea of Christian Perfection or Holiness. Once having 'given one's life to Christ', we are still in need of on-going growth, discipleship and perfection.

I think that the Christian community is extremely important in our on-going discipleship and I think that worship and prayer are important in this continued growth. I'd argue that this is also 'Methodist' - at least, it's Wesleyan. Wesley exhorted his followers to receive communion as often as possible and also recommended 'constant communion'. Certainly, the early classes and bands were nothing if they were not opportunities for moral exhortation and prayer.

That brings me to 'prayer' and I can't really point to anything particularly Methodist as I talk about prayer, although Methodists certainly have nothing against praying! I believe, mainly from personal experience, that putting effort into practicing a prayer life is vitally important. A retired Methodist minister remarked recently that, in his experience, the attitude of many elderly people toward God depended on whether or not they had a prayer life. I'm not talking about 'faith' as 'doctrines' but 'faith' as in whether or not people feel that they can turn to God in times of crisis. This rings true to me and would probably be another long post. Suffice it to say that I think that there is value in 'practicing' prayer even if we can't feel God at all or don't feel like praying.

To sum up, I personally believe that conversion is necessary but not sufficient. For me, to neglect or de-emphasise worship and growth in holiness is to be constantly 'drinking milk' rather than 'eating meat'.

Worship

I love this post by Velveteen Rabbi: Shabbat shalom.

I love the joy of worship and the attitude of thanksgiving to God that it conveys.

Why I Kinda Like Liturgy

Why I Kinda Like Liturgy - Strange title?

First of all, I want to explain that I'm writing this post from the context of British Methodism. If you happen to be an expert in the history of Christian liturgy or a Vestment Vixen, this post is definitely not for you. This post is my explanation into a denomination where I perceive that congregations generally don't have have much regard for formal, written liturgy and often look down upon it.

Secondly, I use the word 'kinda' because I want to explain what I think is good about formal, written liturgy. Often, I think, Christians assume that if one likes liturgy, one will also hate a service with extempore prayers and/or charismatic worship. I do not hate informal or extempore worship; For me, personally, these two forms of worship serve different purposes; I suspect that they may also reach different types of people and that some people are best reached by formal, written liturgy and others are best reached by extempore worship.

So here is why I 'kinda like' formal, written liturgy.

1) Most worship has 'liturgy' or ritual in it anyway. When I attended a church with informal worship, we always began with three praise songs, two which built us up into praise of God and one which quietened us down a bit to come before God in a prayer of approach. Believe it or not, that's actually liturgy. As are the words 'Oh Lord, we just want to come before you today and bless your holy name.' That's liturgy too. This is probably how the first ancient liturgies got written. People found patterns of worship and words that worked and these were repeated until they eventually got written down.

2) Formal, written liturgy has good theology and is well-written. This is important to me. I don't think I've had any 'bad theological experiences' in Methodism, but I've had them in other informal contexts. What can you do when someone says something in prayer or leading worship that is simply incorrect doctrinally? Not a lot, really. Also, in my experience, the theology expressed in informal worship almost invariably centres around 'having a personal relationship with Jesus' or possibly with 'healing' if it's a healing service. Both are well and good, but somewhat limited. Formal liturgy references all three persons of the Trinity and their work, Christian discipleship and stewardship as well as having a personal relationship with Jesus.

3) Formal, written liturgy links us with Christian tradition. I suspect that for many this might be an argument to abandon formal liturgy altogether! But I don't actually think that Church Tradition has gotten everything wrong all the time. When we use formal, written liturgy, we are not only linking ourselves with other Christian brothers and sisters who are saying those prayers right now, but we also link ourselves with our Christian brothers and sisters who went before us into glory.

4) Formal, written liturgy helps us to pray when we don't have the words to pray ourselves, especially those of us who have not been given the gift of speaking in tongues. People often testify to being held in the practice of prayer during times of emotional distress by saying the Daily Office. Also, one benefit of saying the daily office is that you get into the habit of praying whether you 'feel like' it or not.

I think that the number one criticism I hear of formal, written liturgy is that it is rote and insincere and done by people who don't 'really believe'. As someone who values liturgy and who believes and feels that she is 'really and sincerely worshipping' when she uses it, that can often be hard to hear. That said, I know I've certainly seen and heard liturgies where it appeared that neither the worship leader nor the congregation were getting much out of it. But I think that flags up a danger with respect to written liturgy. I don't think it's correct to say that all practice of formal liturgy must necessarily be insincere.

One of the things I love about Methodism is our 'wide church' approach. We are theologically wide and liturgically wide. I hope that Methodists can respect each other no matter what form of worship they prefer.

N.b. This post is not a criticism of any individual or any group in Methodism. I hope it's not perceived that way. It's been born of some discussion about 'worship styles' both on the internet and In Real Life.